Title: When they Cry – Part 1: Episodes 1 to 13
Alternative Title: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, When Cincadas Cry, ひぐらしのなく頃に
Published by: Siren Visual (Australia), Geneon (US)
Based on: The Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Visual Novel series by Ryukishi07.
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Full Frame, Original Ratio.
Run Time: 300 Minutes over 3 DVD’s
Cost: $AUD 49.95 from the Siren Visual online store.
Classification: This title is rated MA15+ for Strong Animated Violence.
My Blurb: “Not for the light-hearted, this is one of Ryukishi07’s finest and most well known works adapted into an anime series. This has the works, a supernatural murder mystery… or is it?, Blood, Murder and a whole gang of cute girls, this series shows how a peaceful life can turn tragically wrong!”
Special Thanks: A special thanks goes to the PR team at Siren Visual for providing me with a review sample of this title.
As a lot of my old readers would know, I have had a considerable history with this title, which also has a sequel Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai which, at least for the moment, is not available anywhere in the world in English (But hopefully at some point).
This volume follows the first half of the series, which is spread out into three arcs, the “Keiichi/Rena arc” (Spirited Away by the Demon), the Twins arc (Cotton Drifting) and the Satoko/Rika arc (Curse Killing). The purpose of these chapters over the second half is to introduce the characters and basic plot for the series, in which at the end of each, time is reversed so the plot can take a new spin. Anyway, if this sounds intreguing, then read on for my review of When they Cry – Part 1, just released by Siren Visual for distribution in Australia and New Zealand!
On a hot summer day in 1983, a transfer student named Maebara Keiichi come sto a peaceful rural village in Hinamizawa. There he befriends his classmates Rena, Mion, Rika and Satoko. Just as Keiichi is beginning to assimilate into simple rural life, he stumbles upon the dark history of Hinamizawa – every year for the past four years, one person has been murdered and another has gone missing on the day of the Watanagashi Festival.
The storyline is usually broken up into two different sections. The first part, and quite often only an episode to an episode and a half long is the “peaceful” life of the characters, where they introduce new characters, backstories, relationships et cetera to the viewers, and this, whilst not being the bloody murder you might have signed up for in choosing this title, is an enjoyable watch. The second part is the famous Higurashi murder stories, where characters are labelled in one of three groups: victim, target and culprit. However, there is also another possibility that looms in every arc…. that the murders could be performed by the divine god of the town…. Oyashiro.
The plot in my opinion is very well written. As someone who or what the actual culprit is, I can happily say that they leave clues through each of the arcs, making not a single arc pointless to the overall storyline, but at the same time, giving each of the arcs a sense of individuality, as well as making them uniquely enjoyable without having the same starting plot occur each time (Eg. Introducing the club, the same back-story each time etc). I would now like to take the chance to review each of the arcs individually.
Spirited Away By the Demon
The first four episodes consist of this chapter. This was a relatively good means of introduction as it introduced almost every character in the series (Besides a few) and focused on the three older club members (Keiichi, Rena and Mion). The murder mystery behind it is most probably the weakest out of the three on the DVD, however it does a good job at appealing the people who want the actual murder scenes, as it is the most grotesque. However, I can happily say that I enjoyed it.
Cotton Drifting
This is without a doubt my least favorite arc and I consider it average at best. This time Mion’s twin sister Shion is introduced and the focus is placed on the two of them, Keiichi, with a more frequent mention of Satoshi Hojou (Satoko’s brother) then the previous arc. Whilst the plot holes are followed up in a “Reveals All” arc that will be on the next DVD, I felt there were too many confusing elements and missing information to warrant this chapter being included at all.
Curse Killing
This is my favorite arc out of any in the first season. This time it focuses on two key elements, Satoko who is now under the care of her uncle, and Keiichi, who feels compelled to take Satoshi’s place yet finds himself suffering from what can be described as “supernatural and unusual circumstances”. This arc isn’t as much mystery as it is the other characters working together to save Satoko. There are a few elements of murder from the first few seconds of the arc, and is the first to show the aftermath of the events from most of the arcs.
Overall, the storyline is pretty good in the first part, and I am sure it shall get you hooked, and eagerly waiting for the next set coming out in a few months time. The only major issue with the first three arcs is that they do seem that they are just there to appeal for murder fans with little to no proper link to the primary storyline, which is only investigated within the answer arcs of the series. However, if you can appreciate the episodes now, you will find that they will all come together at a later point, starting from the next chapter, Time Killing Chapter.
The actual character development in each of the episodes is pretty good, and all of the arcs do offer some development of all the characters. As I stated above, every arc has a primary character and they are the focus, whilst the other characters develop around them. For the most part, Keiichi is the main protagonist in this series, however he remains the most underdeveloped character with only a few flash backs to his past in Curse Killing. As with Keiichi, Rena and Rika do not have much of their back-story revealed as of yet however at least some of their “tragedies” are shown in the Spirited Away by the Demon arc. Satoko, Mion and Shion all have their respective arcs and their character development is a lot stronger, with their sorrowful lives of struggles and abuse and made clear to the viewer. Satoshi, who is as of yet, an unrevealed character, is the character who has had the most consistent character development regarding his “transfer”.
In terms of design quality, it is of a decent standard. Looking at the background and environmental designs first, they do give off a very nice rural feel, with really well designed hillsides, trees and nature whilst the building design remains what you would expect from a country town, slightly worn out, nothing strongly modern and overall has a very nice charm to it, and gives off a hand-drawn feel to some of them. The one thing that I will admit they do brilliantly is the really dark forest scenes, which due to the genre of the series and the area of Hinamizawa, is quite often the setting of a lot of scenes. The forests usually have a suspenseful air to them, and are full of detail! In terms of character designs, they are suitable however I wouldn’t call them the best quality in comparison to other series that were released the same time as it. With an environment that seems so realistic at times, the designs of the characters appear faker then I would have liked them. However, they are not terrible designs, character expressions are absolutely brilliant (Especially the psychopathic looks!) and it does allow them to switch to a more comedic style of design when they like without it looking too weird.
Opening Theme: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni by Eiko Shimamiya
If you look back through my archives, you will see that at one point I labelled this as my favorite anime opening of all time. Sadly, I would have to say it has lost its first place, however it is still a brilliant opening theme and gets across that this is a psychopathic murder mystery series quite well with the song, which is a really dark song in both tune and lyrics, and the animation which is also focuses on the murder mystery component of the series then the happy school life episodes.
Ending Theme: why or why not by Hiroyuki Oshima featuring Rekka Katakiri
This song is sung in English and whilst it is not a bad song, I have never really been able to make myself enjoy it, and after watching it the first time, I chose just to not watch it again. In terms of the animation, it is average, dark and it does the job well. However, not is all lost, attached to the song is a small instrumental piece which is used in the series to do the next episode preview… this small piece, alongside the way they do the next episode preview works extremely well, and honestly, is something I listened to every time and one of the few instrumental pieces to give me chills down the spine.
The music in this series can be categorized into two different groups, the cheerful songs and the very dark and mysterious songs. In terms of balance, there are a lot of darker songs then there are cheerful ones. The variety of the songs is quite good and you will find most tracks won’t be repeated over and over again on an episodic basis. The song quality overall is pretty good, however I did feel that a lot of the songs are rather simple and could have been a bit more complex to get a more intense mood across. However, for what there was, it was good.
English dubbing ranged from very good to average. Grant George does an absolutely excellent job at voicing our protagonist Keiichi and is able to put across his changing personalities really well in every scenario. Kelli Kassidi who voiced Mion and Shion, Minx Lee who voiced Satoko, Mela Lee who voiced Rena and Joe DiMucci who voiced Detective Ooishi all did an absolutely brilliant job at doing the voice acting for their respective characters and were on par or better then the Japanese voice actors in my opinion, especially Joe DiMucci who really pulls off the badass detective role very well. The voice actor for Rika was okay, however did not pull off the child-like nature of Rika as well as I would have liked.
In terms of extras in this DVD set, it comes with the following:
- The normal slipcover case, which features a rather well designed image of Rena (See the cover above for the case cover).
- As with Welcome to Irabu’s Office, a 10% off voucher for Siren Visual’s online store.
- Textless Opening and Endings
- Trailers for three of their titles…. Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne (Out now), Casshern Sins (Out Now – Part 1 Review) and Tears to Tiara (Out Now)
Overall, there is nothing really special in terms of extra content, however it is satisfactory, and better then nothing at all.
In my personal opinion, it is about damn time that someone decided to release the English version of the series over here. It is an absolutely brilliant mystery and murder series that every anime fan should add to their watch lists, alongside the next title in the When They Cry series (Umineko No Naku Koro Ni – Which I hope will be released in English at some point). The series has a good balance of the happy life and the tragedies, the back-story and the current events and mystery versus anti-mystery. What can I say but… really do consider getting it.
